My Blog List

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Rex in peace my brother. From Kensington Court to Grammar School; to Jamaica, London and Birmingham. Sadly, I never visited you in South Africa. From Rising Sun Steel Band to fete on campus and off campus. You always opened your heart to the music and the love that true friends share.

I cannot recall you been constitutively angry, even in ('nuff) argument, which almost always ended with a laugh, or a bet, or both.

It is strikingly strange how memories of you, in the twinkling of a tear-drop, travel faster than the speed of light when the sound of death flashes from South Africa to Antigua and Barbuda. It must be some sign of extra-special relativity. Whenever we meet, I always ask you when will you come home. And now you answer me for real (“fu tru”).

But when it is all said and done, and dusted, and the ashes call you back, I want to remember you through the immortality of memories. As Sir Derek Walcott said in reference to calypsonian Spoiler, and so to you I will: I decompose, but I composing still. Rex in peace, my brother. Rex, in peace.

About Me

The hard work and adversity of my
parents and the dedication of my teachers ignited in me a passion for arts and
science and an everlasting quest for knowledge.

I spent 13 years in Jamaica at UWI,
where I met my wife, Norma and we brought two wonderful children, Sawandi and
Sabriya, into this world. Sawandi is a doctor and musician and a Red Bull Music
Academy Winner. Sabriya has a Masters Degree in Psychology. She is the 2007
Jamaican National Visual Arts silver-medalist, a photographer and a poet.

I am the director of the Mount St.
John’s Medical Center laboratory. My wife and I manage our private lab, Medpath
Clinical Laboratory. I spent about 3 years in England pursuing additional
postgraduate training for periods from 3 months to 1 year. My understanding of
music is largely due to Melba Liston, former head of the Afro-American
department of the Jamaica School of Music.

I play the soprano, alto and tenor
saxophone. Other musical instruments I play or practice on include: single
tenor and double seconds steel pans, clarinet and bass clarinet, flute alto
flute and piccolo, violin, acoustic bass guitar, accordion, piano, harmonica,
English horn, bassoon.